


the retreat

by Keturagh



Series: False Fruit [28]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fade Dreams, Fade Spirits, Hugs, Post-Break Up, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:06:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22059013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Keturagh/pseuds/Keturagh
Summary: Pangara and Solas have both drawn the attention of a special spirit.
Relationships: Female Lavellan/Solas, Fen'Harel/Female Lavellan, Fen'Harel/Inquisitor, Fen'Harel/Lavellan, Lavellan/Solas (Dragon Age)
Series: False Fruit [28]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1579504
Kudos: 9





	the retreat

**“Standing next to my old friend I sense that his soldiers have retreated” (Government, Marie Howe, The Kingdom of Ordinary Time)**

\--

“Do you want yellow or do you want blue?”

“Tell me which you planned to use,” he said.

“Yellow.”

“Then I will have yellow.”

Solas raised his arm exactly as she showed him.

She stood on her toes and held one end of the thin strip of fabric to the inside of his armpit. She let the other end dangle to the ground; when it did not touch his hip, her face scrunched into an expression of exaggerated rage.

“You’re too tall,” she complained.

He laughed. “Your mother used to tell me that.”

He was sitting. The rocks on the beach were peculiar: black and red, neither too heavy to hold nor throw. He dropped the arm she was not measuring and lifted a red rock. He smoothed his fingers over its puckered, cratered shell. He made a fist and squeezed - for all it felt like it might crumble, the stone was solid in his palm.

“Is this pumice?” He asked himself, but she looked over and lunged to grab it from him. Solas snatched his grasp up, just out of her reach, and his other hand closed to point one cautioning finger in front of her nose. “Ah.” He said.

She rocked back and at first her eyes narrowed and she looked as though she might snarl. But, as he slowly raised a brow and tilted his head, she moderated. Something that might, if she were older, look like shame flashed across her face. Then she broke into a wide and half-toothy smile.

He could never help but smile back.

“What do we say?” He prompted.

“May I please have what you have?”

He chuckled and dropped the rock into her two hands, cupped tight together.

“What interests you about that rock in particular, da’len?”

She did not answer and it was as good as her failing to hear him, although he imagined the question merely bored her.

He looked away from her and around at the endless beach. Black and red rocks as far as he could see down the left shore, and again - a flat expanse to the right. And in front of them, the sea.

He lifted and opened his arms wider side-to-side. He entreated, softly, “May I be measured for my new coat tomorrow, ma da’vhenan?”

She turned the rock over and then held it in one hand. She had no interest in curling into his hold, of allowing him to cradle her and tuck loose strands back in her braids; she had a singular interest. She crouched, picked up the tailor’s cloth again, and went back to draping the length beside his torso, clumsy now with the the treasure she would not relinquish. It seemed to him that her small fingers should not be able to hold anything - seemed to him that she should fumble everything she tried to grasp - her hands should be too little to keep the things she carries.

“You were absent all day,” called a voice behind him.

He looked around with something like guilt and heard the rock clatter as it rejoined the mosaic of the shore. The sky was dark as ever and he saw her outline, stepping towards him through the ever-present roil of smoke. He dropped his arms.

The pup scampered from his side, a streak of gray fur kicking up rocks as it bolted towards the sea. It entered the spray and disappeared. When Pangara stepped close to him, he wondered if she’d seen. Tucking her knees to one side and her hair grimy with wind and ash and dust, she sat beside him and leaned against his shoulder.

“I didn’t know where I might find you. But I walked as you showed me. And my ‘pure intent’ brought me here.” She smirked up at him, and his heart clenched, and he wanted, badly, to kiss her.

A spray raked up from the sea and shuffled the beach, rocks shivering and turning over like the ground could breathe.

“Did you meet with any spirits, on the paths?”

“Only one.” She looked at him sideways and then did not say more, and he did not press, leaning forward stooped and timid, clasping his hands tight together.

They lapsed into silence.

They listened to the sea.

“I call her Vir Atisha. It’s too much name, I know. I… I call her Attie,” she admitted, softly. “What kind of spirit is she, do you think?”

”It is a spirit of Fulfillment. They are quite rare. This one has not always shaped itself this way, although… I have known it for a very long time.”

He pressed his eyes tightly shut. He cried in silence while she held him.

And behind him the dream of mountains burst with another cough of fire; the Fade’s green light flashed on the horizon. She held him amidst all he had wrought, her knees bitten by the rocks — scoria that would one day grind to fine, red sand and wash out with the tide — and they listened to the sea and the distant dream-songs of spirits touching down upon the earth, and they grieved.


End file.
